About Me

I am a cisgender womxn who is racially categorized as white in the United States and broader societal context. I am a former elementary teacher who has taught in Kindergarten, 2nd, and 3rd-grade classrooms. I understand my job to be part of a larger feminist, anti-racist, anti-classist, anti-oppression movement.

I have a Bachelor of Science degree in Elementary Education from Appalachian State University. I also have a master’s degree in Urban Education, with a certificate in Anti-Racist Education from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, and I am currently pursuing my doctoral degree from Western Carolina University's Doctorate of Educational Leadership program. I am currently the Co-Executive Director of a foundation in Asheville, NC, where I teach community workshops, collaborate with LatinX and Indigenous Early Childhood Education (ECE) + after-school programs, and research Positive Childhood Experiences (PCEs) as a combatant to Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs).

My passion is continuously learning from, and inspiring kids, to make the world a better place through research and positivity. I am enthusiastically researching PCEs, Love, and Identity as tools to arm youth with resiliency skills while calling out the Systemic, Historical, and Institutional Trauma (SHIT) that bombards them daily.

My self-given job title (and life-long goal) is Research Agitator (one who speaks out against the oppressive traditional systematic investigations aimed at the discovery and interpretation of “facts”), a SHITter of FUN (one who acknowledges the FuckedUpedNess of the Societal, Historical, and Intergenerational Trauma created by systems of domination while striving to spread fun and love), and an Aerator of Unfuckwithability (one who makes space for others so that they may achieve their pinnacle and know that they matter while also believing in their ability to make their own opportunities because they are unstoppable).

In my free time, I enjoy cooking, writing poetry, reading, and kayaking with my fantastic partner and beautiful daughter in the spectacular mountains of Western North Carolina, former lands of the Tsalaguwetiyi (Cherokee, East) and S’atsoyaha (Yuchi) people.